1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a water conditioning apparatus, such as a water softening unit, a filter removing foreign matter from water, a purified water system, and the like, the apparatus being provided with a time control device for controlling a process thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional time control device is disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 57-156083. In this device, a day-wheel (a main wheel) is driven by a motor to rotate about a first axis at a constant speed, for example, one revolution per day, and a skipper wheel is provided to rotate about a second axis different from the first axis. The day-wheel engages a claw portion formed on the skipper wheel at a predetermined angular position, to rotate the skipper wheel through a predetermined angle, so that a drive mechanism is driven, and accordingly, a regenerating operation is carried out to regenerate an ion exchange resin.
As described above, since the day-wheel and the skipper wheel are located on different axes, it is difficult to reduce the size of the time control device and thus the water softening unit, per se, is large. On the other hand, if the sizes of the day-wheel and the skipper wheel are reduced, a finger member for setting a regeneration timing also must be reduced, and thus the operation of setting the timing becomes difficult.